The Regional Studies Center (RSC) held its latest closed monthly briefing on November 5, offering a comprehensive analysis consisting of three main issues: an assessment of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, with a focus on the last three meetings of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents; a review of developments in Armenia’s “strategic orientation,” including both the course of Armenia’s bid to join the Eurasian Economic Union and the outlook for the development of Armenian relations with the European Union (EU); and an analysis of recent political developments in Armenia.

Meeting in Helsinki, Finland, two former officials and lead negotiators from Armenia and Azerbaijan, David Shahnazaryan, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, and the former Ambassador of the President of the Republic of Armenia on Special Missions (1992-95), and Eldar Namazov, former Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the head of Presidential Secretariat (1993-99), led a group of eight representatives of civil society and experts and issued a Declaration on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict on 3 November 2014.

On 31 October, RSC Director Richard Giragosian was a guest on Armenia TV’s “Point of Intersection” (“Հատման կետ”) talk show, hosted by noted journalist and former BBC Armenian Service Director Mark Grigorian. The show featured two other analysts and one member of the Armenian parliament and assessed the recent Paris meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents and reviewed the status of the Karabakh peace process. With consecutive translation, Giragosian’s original English-language statements are also available.

www.armeniatv.am/hy/programs/48097/52961

RSC Director Richard Giragosian participated in roundtable discussion on 30 October entitled, “Repercussions of the Ukraine Crisis in the South Caucasus: Politics and Security.” Organized by the Caucasus Institute (CI) and moderated by CI Director Alexander Iskandaryan, the roundtable featured presentations by Giragosian, which assessed the political and economic challenges facing Ukraine, and a presentation by CI Deputy Director Sergey Minasyan on “the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on regional security in the Caucasus and potential repercussions in the entire post-Soviet space.”

In the latest in a series of regular contributions to the Investor.ge publications, RSC Director Richard Giragosian offered a new analytical article entitled, “The South Caucasus: Regional Division and Divergence.” Published in the October-November 2014 issue of Investor.ge, the article noted that “for the three countries of the South Caucasus, the priority has always been to overcome the limits of geography. And for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the preference has been to look beyond the regional confines of the South Caucasus. But never before has the region been as divided as it is now, as the South Caucasus has become a strategic arena of competition and confrontation with Russia seeking to push back and push out European Union (EU) engagement.”